UNICEF launches Cryptocurrency Fund:
UNICEF will now be able to receive, hold and disburse donations of #cryptocurrencies #ether and #bitcoin, through its newly-established UNICEF Cryptocurrency Fund. In a first for United Nations…https://t.co/6SRGs3yUQThttps://t.co/LTZJjc1Sjr

It is pleasant to know that the UN finally opts for crypto and demonstrates the potential they have to help many people worldwide through a transparent and immutable donation with the blockchain ... it is not surprising that later we will see that other organizations within and outside the UN, use the blockchain to take advantage of its potential ... so it occurs to me later to see Doctors Without Borders for example by sending medical records through blockchains like FLETA who have experience in this field to help diagnose in time sufferings in conflict zones impoverished by crises.

Wow this is great news, it is for a great cause and for blockchain adoption. I always love how we can integrate it with the community because it's truly possible.

Recently, I stumbled upon projects that also requires interaction to the community by having them rate by the work they've done for that project, it's called social mining. It's like airdrop or bounty for holders.

Anyways, love the idea I hope more corporations are also open to this.

> The first contributions to the UNICEF Cryptocurrency Fund will be received from the Ethereum Foundation and will benefit three grantees of the UNICEF Innovation Fund – and a project coordinated by the GIGA initiative to connect schools across the world to the internet.

UNICEF has been issuing certificates on the public ethereum blockchain for a while now: [https://www.unicef.org/innovation/certifications-via-blockchain](https://www.unicef.org/innovation/certifications-via-blockchain)
Contract created by UNICEF 222 days ago: [https://etherscan.io/address/0x87f74b6d00dd8bd8ff6e3b805bda09ca34390258](https://etherscan.io/address/0x87f74b6d00dd8bd8ff6e3b805bda09ca34390258)

Interesting.
I'd argue that grassroots p2p donations don't really take the place of something like UNICEF. Of course there's value in putting "$5 worth of chicken combo" directly into the hands of Y. Rojas, but to some extent this service is already provided by platforms like GoFundMe or the free sections of Craigslist, Kijiji, etc. Meanwhile, if you want to, say, vaccinate children or build the infrastructure for clean water for an entire village, you need planning, equipment, trained personnel, and project oversight. That's what the UNICEFs of the world provide, even if they are less efficient in some other respects--you simply can't organize larger-scale projects between two people on the internet. I'm not saying anything negative about PolloPollo; just that I don't think it 'threatens' larger charities. They serve different purposes and we need both.

You make some very good points, like you said it's not suitable for many things e.g vaccinations of children etc.
However, I think its model is applicable to a substantial part of the charity sector, the basic idea of matching a local recipient and a local producer is where most trade is done, locally. Most charities operate locally or nationally, not internationally like Unicef. The local charity sector which is what pollopollo does is bigger than the international one which Unicef operate in, afaik.
Still very early stage, but very few cryptos have real world utility right now apart from gambling, but pollopollo has. Its had some credible press coverage too

Fair, and certainly no arguments about crypto generally lacking real-world utility. And I applaud the effort here regardless.
But specifically about PolloPollo--I mean the nuts and bolts, not the overall concept--why blockchain/crypto? How is its offering superior to any other 'match-making' platform that connects people? As I understand it, 'applicants' register a need, donors pay for requested items in GBYTE, and smart contracts are used to execute the transaction, after which we trust that the vendors on the ground will actually give the goods to the people they were intended to reach. I'm not questioning the outcome, but I don't especially see the use-case for crypto here. At minimum GBYTE seems interchangeable with other cryptos (I mean, aside from the arbitrary requirement of GBYTE), and the same model would work fine with Fiat as well. And smart contracts are a sexy buzzword, but I'm not clear on the value-add vs. a more traditional model. Is it simply the potential for greater anonymity and the conceptual value of decentralization?

This explainer video might https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8nxs0YRwUQ
The payment is released when the applicant collects the goods from the producer.
It's different from fiat as you cannot easily create conditional payments like this. Say for example I want to donate exactly $5 of useful goods to someone in another country, how can fiat do this? I don't want to send the recipient money directly as they might buy alcohol . But if I gave it to a charity they will take their running costs etc out of my donation
There is still trust required with pollopollo, as the recipient and producer might be too friendly. However there are things that can be added later to limit potential abuse eg you can link your real world identity to your obyte wallet.

Thanks for the video.
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>Say for example I want to donate exactly $5 of useful goods to someone in another country, how can fiat do this?
The vendor in the other country can advertise that it will give $5 of tomato plants (or whatever) to a person in need, and you can then send them $5 to do so--it's like sending a merchant in another country $$ for any online purchase. It's less elegant than the smart contract option, but you can set up a match-making site where applicants ask for donations and then confirm receipt. There are [models that do this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Peer-to-peer_charities) already.
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>The payment is released when the applicant collects the goods from the producer.
Sure, and the fact that a smart contract can do all of this automatically makes it a convenient option. But it seems like you're just trading one inefficiency for another. For example, without oversight, how are applicants vetted to ensure they're not freeloaders who don't actually need charity? Or--more extreme example that you allude to in your comment--what's to prevent a dishonest actor from being both a producer and an applicant? I.e., create one profile offering tomatoes for sale, and create another profile asking for donations of tomatoes, and then receive donations from friendly people thousands of miles away without actually producing or giving anything away.
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>if I gave it to a charity they will take their running costs etc out of my donation
Yes, but that accounting is all out in the open and audited by various authorities, so at least I know what I'm getting into. But with a totally decentralized model, I have no proof that the applicants are in need, or that the goods are actually going where I'm told they are. Offered that choice, I'd much rather have a definite 30% of my money go to administration than an unknown 0% - 100% go to fraud. My choice would change if there was a way to vet the actors and confirm that goods were actually getting to people in need, but that would entail oversight, which would entail administrative overhead, and then we're back where we started.
I really didn't get into this conversation to try and shoot down PolloPollo because again, I think anything trying to apply blockchain in the real world is a step in the right direction. At the same time, it feels like we're collectively struggling to find non-currency use-cases that actually *need* blockchain.

These are super great (and really thorough) points, and you are absolutely right in each of the points you raise. At least in the platform's current state.
The obvious problem of course being "yeah, but what if producer and applicant know each other just a little "too well" so to speak". And you are a absolutely right. The PolloPollo platform definitely doesn't provide any guarantee of that. What the platform does provide though, is full transparency. At least that's currently the best it can do. Donors can see who they are donating to and make their own decision on whether they want to trust that applicant and producer or not. That's slightly better than the degree of transparency offered by regular charities.
But the platform is still in it's very early days, and a lot of the improvements that are already planned are not yet implemented yet. One of the more interesting features that will be added, is a way for producers to provide proof of real world identity. (The Obyte platform upon which this is built has built-in self sovereign identity management) This basically allows a producer to do a voluntary ID verification and will be shown on PolloPollo with a little "ID verified" badge on their profile. Donors can then see that a producer successfully completed the ID check. It still doesn't provide any guarantees of anything, but it adds a bit to the transparency.
Another addition that is also planned but currently only partially implemented is full history of both producers and applicants. You are already able to see previous applications an applicant made, but not yet the history for producers.
Again, neither of the improvements will result in a 100% bulletproof charity platform. But that isn't the aim. The aim is to enable donors a far greater transparency into what the donated funds are used for and to enable donors to make decisions of their own.
The additional benefits are of course the elimination of intermediaries, no cost for administration and no logistics and goods being blocked at borders. Donated funds are injected directly into a local community where it will result in increased revenue for merchants and shops which again will add to the area's general wealth.
These are just some of the plans for the platform, but there is another rather interesting aspect. And that's of course remittances. Family having successfully fled a country will be able to make direct donations of physical products to relatives who weren't as fortunate to escape. Without them having to have access to devices with wallets, knowing how to trade digital currencies at exchanges or even have internet access of their own. The model makes those requirements only for producers who are often far better off and are usually in possession of at least a smartphone.
Finally, and this is of course almost goes without saying: PolloPollo cannot replace the large scale humanitarian aid in large scale natural disasters or war zones. While it is built mobile-first and as light weight as possible to make the platform usable in areas with poor internet connectivity, it still requires at least some degree of infrastructure. But there are countless areas around the world where this can potentially be a relevant alternative.
I'd be happy to provide additional information and am also very happy for all the feedback here. All suggestions, points of criticism and potential ideas are highly appreciated. If anyone would like to know more than I was able to write here from a mobile, I'll be happy to discuss. There is a Discord server that is created for this exact purpose (https://discord.pollopollo.org) and if anyone feels like joining in and helping us improve the project, I will really, really appreciate it.